Supreme Court Monitoring of the United States Courts of Appeals En Banc

George, Tracey E.; Solimine, Michael E.

doi:10.1086/scer.9.1147132

Cited by 26 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…25 For some research questions, choice‐based sampling techniques may be used to overcome concerns raised by selecting on the dependent variable (see, e.g., Cameron et al. 2000; George & Solimine 2001). 26…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Case Selection and the Study of Judicial Politics

Kastellec

Lax

2008

J Empirical Legal Studies

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One complication in studying the Supreme Court and the judicial hierarchy is that the Court's docket is now nearly completely discretionary. Although the Justices’ strategies in picking cases affect the observations we make and the inferences we draw, this is rarely taken into account in studies of judicial politics. In this article, we study how case selection can affect our inferences within judicial politics, including those about decision making in the Supreme Court itself (such as whether law constrains the Justices) and throughout the judicial hierarchy (such as whether lower courts comply with Supreme Court doctrine). We use simulation analysis to show that the inferential problems raised by the Court's case selection range from moderate to severe. At stake are substantive conclusions within some of the most important and controversial debates in judicial politics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Case Selection and the Study of Judicial Politics

Kastellec

Lax

2008

J Empirical Legal Studies

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“…Accordingly, circuits engage in the practice only sparingly, reserving it for cases where it is critical that the circuit speak with full authority—either because an issue has generated conflict or because it is particularly important. Howard's (1981) and George and Solimine's (2001) findings that en banc cases were considerably more likely than panel cases to be reviewed by the Supreme Court enhanced our confidence in the en banc hearing as an indicator of importance 6…”

Section: Data and Measuresmentioning

confidence: 98%

Fear of Reversal as an Explanation of Lower Court Compliance

Klein¹,

Hume²

2003

Law Soc Rev

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Lower courts in the United States are generally responsive to specific precedents and trends in the decisionmaking of their judicial superiors. In this article, we ask why. We test one popular explanation—that compliance can be attributed to judges' fear of having their decisions reversed—through an analysis of search and seizure cases decided in the U.S. Courts of Appeals between 1961 and 1990. Since the Supreme Court cannot reverse a decision unless it agrees to review it, we ask whether circuit judges are more likely to decide as the Supreme Court would be expected to when they face cases that are otherwise more likely to be reviewed by the Court. Finding that they are not, we conclude that fear of reversal cannot account for widespread circuit court compliance in these cases, nor, presumably, more generally. More broadly, our findings point to the importance of factors apart from supervisors and the threat of sanctions in determining subordinates' compliance.

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“…However, if a researcher wants to incorporate the cases the Court hears to study the Court's actual decisions, rather than to study the selection process itself, then for many research designs it will suffice to analyze a random sample of nonselected cases (see, e.g., Owens 2007). 25 For some research questions, choice-based sampling techniques may be used to overcome concerns raised by selecting on the dependent variable (see, e.g., Cameron et al 2000;George & Solimine 2001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%